


Angel's Wings

by Leonawriter



Series: Sombre Morrow verse [7]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Post-Dirge of Cerberus, Set in the Original Timeline for the Sombre Morrow verse, mutated monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: When Cissnei finds herself in trouble hours from anywhere she can run to, help comes in the form of a very unexpected saviour that she hadn't been warned about.Understanding of the main fic is useful, but not necessary.





	Angel's Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes there are scenes that I want to share that happen from before the time travel, from someone's point of view that ins't Genesis'. But only Genesis gets the flashbacks in the main fic, so if it's not his POV, it doesn't appear. Which is where side-stories like this happen.
> 
> I really like Cissnei, and I've had something like this in mind for a while now.

Going back to Shinra being an option was something that neither she nor the other 'former' Turks had ever thought would be possible, after the way that things had happened. Even after President Shinra had been killed and Rufus had taken his place, it wasn't as though he'd made any formalities about excusing them. 

Meteor had brought them all out of hiding. 

Geostigma had drawn them out, though never working so openly as they had done once upon a time. Never without question.

They'd all thought that with the Remnants and their Reunion - that Cloud had stopped, if the reports were to be believed, strange as it was to think of that Infantryman they'd bumped into from time to time growing up to become someone like that - everything would be over.

_It's just one thing after another, isn't it?_

Cissnei swung with her shuriken, slicing at the leg of one vaguely wolf-like creature with furious, glowing green eyes. It started to bleed, but that didn't seem to hinder it like it should, just like with all of the others she'd faced down.

Of course, one of the downsides to specialising in a style that used a throwing weapon, was that once it was thrown you had to get it back before you could use it again.

She thinks that she has to be seeing things when a black feather floats slowly down through the air in front of her face, but she dared not look up-

The only things she could possibly see if she did, were either a winged monster bearing down on her, or... what they had all been warned was a terrifyingly real possibility - that one of these days their luck was going to run out, that  _he_ would appear among them once more. And Tseng had told them,  _you'd better hope that when he does, Cloud is there._

 _Because if he isn't, you will die,_  went unspoken. They didn't need to hear it. They were Turks, no matter what and in spite of everything, and Turks always completed their mission. Always.

Even so, Cissnei felt her heart speed up, a thought passing through her mind of  _I wonder if this is what Zack felt like, at the end, when we couldn't reach him in time,_ when she thought of how she was already injured, how she'd heard a howl in the distance that was getting closer.

She readied her weapon. The already injured mutated monster came at her, and she was able to aim for one of its weak spots, but that left her wide open on her other side, from which she could hear the other one coming in fast-

-Although, not anywhere near as fast as the red-and-black blur that appeared beside her. 

A sword cut through the newest addition with ease, before turning for its next target, which she was fully convinced was going to be her.

It wasn't, however. 

The two monsters fell where they'd been slain, and Cissnei stayed standing.

It's only when she has the chance to back up and take stock of what's just happened that she understands - she's seen wings like this one, figures wearing coats like this, before. Years ago, maybe, but a Turk doesn't forget a face that easily, especially if he's caused her as much trouble as this one.

There were ways in which he looked different - the hair, the coat looking that much more out of shape than she'd ever seen it, the... lack of white streaks and overall exhaustion. She gets the distinct impression that this isn't one of the many Copies, either. That it's the  _original._

None of which explained why he'd just  _saved_ her.

"It's a long walk back to civilisation," he says, as if he isn't someone who'd been listed as Killed In Action by the higher-ups, and then on Shinra's Most Wanted list, preferably wanted dead.

But asking all of the questions she  _wants_ to ask won't get her anywhere. Or at least, not anywhere she thinks would be useful.

So she shrugs, and says that her bike had broken down, which is true.

He offers to take her back to Rocket Town at least, and she declines. Politely, but still. She needs to get there, but... the idea of letting herself be  _carried_ by someone she doesn't trust not to drop her from a fatal height.

"Have it your way," Genesis Rhapsodos, SOLDIER First Class, said with a shrug of his own. And then, "We might as well start walking, then."

Which wasn't what she'd expected him to say - or do - either, but a few minutes and a short distance later found him asking what she was out there for, to which she asked him the same question.

"I suppose I'm playing the messenger," he said, sounding amused at the obvious demotion. Which was... uncharacteristic, given what little she knew of him. 

She nodded, though, and neither of them went into more detail.

Eventually, though, she had to ask.

"Did you find it, then? That thing you were looking for."

He looked at her appraisingly, in a way she recognised from when she'd say something that had someone re-evalulate her.

"The Gift of the Goddess, you mean? You could say that, yes."

She wonders if perhaps that's why he seems so much calmer, so much less likely to kill her as soon as her back was turned.

Not that she'd let that happen. Tseng and the others were waiting for her, after all.

...

She stops him once they reach Rocket Town, before he leaves to go play the messenger. 

There's a look in his eye that reminds her a little of the way that Sephiroth would merely humour people when he had other, far better, things to do. Which makes sense, she tells herself, because they were friends, once. And besides, he stays. He could ignore her and go, but he doesn't.

"What's... it like?" Her eyes are, once again, drawn to that one single wing that he still has out. It's folded over him right now, giving some relief from the midday sun. Which is such a trivial thing, to use a wing for. "Being able to fly, I mean."

He blinks at her, and she feels as though she's being re-evaluated for a second time. 

"Most people," he says slowly, "would look at this and immediately see the inhumanity of it. But I digress. Flight is..." For a moment he looks frustrated - an inability to choose his words, perhaps? - and then he shakes his head. "I did offer to let you see. You were the one who chose not to."

"I wouldn't be the one flying, and I had no reason to trust you," she says honestly. 

Genesis smiles, a smile that reminds her that no matter that he'd saved her, this was still the same man who had killed everyone in his hometown, who had waged literal war on Shinra not even all that long ago.

Not without good reason. But then, they'd all had reason enough to hate what Shinra had become in the end. Not all of them had gone that  _far._

"I suppose... even when all I felt toward the wing itself was disgust at the thing that marked me as a monster, I can't say I never enjoyed the ability it gave me."

Cissnei smiled, and nodded.

"I told Zack this, a long time ago." She noticed his eyes sharpen at the name. "But... when I was growing up, all the stories I heard about people with wings called them  _angels._ Back then, I always wanted to have those wings too. Because for me at least, they symbolised freedom, for those who have none."

She nodded again, this time a professional acknowledgment, and headed for where she knew Tseng should be.

Cissnei knew that she was doing what she wanted most, what she felt was doing the most good in the world right now. 

She hoped that for all he'd done - all he'd been through, given the way he'd looked back there, and the way that he'd helped her - Genesis was in the same kind of place too.


End file.
